San Francisco Park Fills With Impersonators

Reporters and photographers gathered outside a neoclassical courthouse — Photo: Shutterstock

Hundreds of people dressed as Elizabeth Holmes packed a San Francisco park Saturday, turning the disgraced Theranos founder into an unlikely costume contest star.

Story Snapshot

About two dozen Holmes look-alikes competed in Lafayette Park on November 7, 2026, judged on a staring contest, a dance-off and a mock business pitch.
Stanford University medical resident Sierra Stingl won the Holmes crown, while Alex Kesin took the matching Nathan Fielder title.
The contest drew inspiration from the A24 documentary “You Can See Everything” and was organized by the social media account @threegirlsinsf.
More than 1,000 people RSVPed online, though reports put actual spectators at a few hundred.
Similar lookalike contests popped up the same week in New York City, showing the trend spread beyond the Bay Area.

A Park Full of Turtlenecks and Red Lipstick

Lafayette Park at Gough and Washington Streets turned into a sea of black turtlenecks, slicked-back hair and bold red lipstick Saturday afternoon. The event, billed as the “Nathan Fielder/Elizabeth Holmes Look Alike Contest,” ran from 1 to 2 p.m. and asked contestants to copy the exact look that made Holmes famous during her Theranos years.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that roughly two dozen people dressed as Holmes faced off in front of a few hundred onlookers. Judges scored contestants on three odd challenges: a staring contest, a dance-off and a fake business pitch meant to mimic Holmes’s famous Silicon Valley sales pitches. The event description told attendees to “perform authenticity and confuse people on your character”.

A Stanford Medical Resident Takes the Crown

Sierra Stingl, a plastic surgery resident at Stanford University, won the Holmes title. Alex Kesin claimed the matching prize for best Nathan Fielder impression, the filmmaker and comedian whose work inspired a separate costume track at the same event. Photos distributed by The Associated Press showed both winners posing with their crowns, giving the contest a documented, verifiable outcome.

KRON4 confirmed the same contest structure and winners, reporting that the event was hosted by the account @threegirlsinsf and pulled in more than 1,000 RSVPs through the event app Partiful. That RSVP number does not match the smaller crowd size reporters actually observed, a common gap between online interest and real turnout at free public events.

Tied to a New A24 Documentary

The contest drew its spark from “You Can See Everything,” a new A24 documentary centered on Holmes and the Theranos scandal. SFist reported the gathering was inspired by the film and put together by a small group of San Francisco residents rather than any studio or official promoter. There is no record of A24 funding, sponsoring or formally endorsing the park event.

guys stop sending me elizabeth holmes lookalike contests

— Liquid Eiya (@eiyawow) November 8, 2026

The same week, a nearly identical contest filled Washington Square Park in New York City, drawing its own crowd of costumed Holmes impersonators. The spread of near-identical events across two cities suggests a grassroots trend rather than a single coordinated marketing push, even though both gatherings leaned on the same documentary for their theme.

Satire, Not Endorsement, Legal Experts Say

Contests built around a real person’s image sit in a gray area of the law. Courts have long protected parody and satire as free speech, even when a performance copies someone’s exact look or mannerisms for a crowd. A balancing test from California case law asks whether a tribute adds enough original creative spin to count as commentary rather than a simple copy of someone’s identity for profit.

Nothing in the public record shows Holmes, her legal team or A24 issued any statement about the park gatherings. The absence of an official reaction has not stopped the format from catching on, with organizers in multiple cities treating the Theranos saga as fair game for public comedy rather than private tribute or paid promotion.

A Lighter Moment Amid Heavier News

For a news cycle usually dominated by government shutdown fights, immigration disputes and economic anxiety, the Lafayette Park gathering offered Americans something rare: a shared laugh. Crowds on the left and right turned out together to mock a convicted fraudster’s carefully built image, a reminder that distrust of flashy, self-promoting elites crosses political lines just as easily as it fills a public park on a Saturday afternoon.